Although Hadley Freeman knew her grandmother Sara lived in France in the 1930s, her family rarely talked about it. Long after her grandmother's death, she found a shoebox containing photographs of a mysterious stranger, a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross, and a drawing signed by Picasso. As Freeman recounts here, this began a decade-long quest for answers, and in her travels—from Paris to the Auvergne, from Long Island to Auschwitz—she learns more about her family, but also the experiences of many Eastern European Jews during Holocaust.